Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Former Thai Prime Minister Abhisit
Vejjajiva and his deputy heard murder charges against them for
their role in quelling political protests that claimed about 90
lives in 2010.

Abhisit and former Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban
appeared at the Department of Special Investigation, an agency
under the Justice Ministry, as their opponents played songs
about the military crackdown. The DSI, prosecutors and police
last week said Abhisit and Suthep authorized soldiers to use
weapons to disperse demonstrators backed by former Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who were calling for an election.

“What you see is politically motivated,” Abhisit told
reporters in Bangkok yesterday after hearing the charges. “I am
absolutely confident in our innocence. We never had an intention
to kill people,” he said, describing the case against him as
“inconsistent and contradictory.”

The charges come 17 months after the party of Prime
Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s sister, won the first
election after the violence. Abhisit denies wrongdoing and has
said the case is aimed at forcing the opposition to accept a
broad amnesty bill that would include Thaksin, who has lived
overseas since fleeing a jail sentence stemming from charges
filed by an army-appointed body after his ouster in a 2006 coup.

“If the court rules that I am guilty with a death
sentence, I am ready for that because I want to protect the
law,” Abhisit told supporters earlier yesterday. “And if I am
executed, I want those who deserve a jail term to come back to
face it so the nation can move forward,” he said, referring to
Thaksin.

Protester Killed

A Bangkok court ruled in September that soldiers shot and
killed protester Phan Khamkong on May 14, 2010, the same day
Abhisit’s government authorized live fire zones around the
demonstration site. Phan’s death would fall outside the
parameters of bills under consideration in Parliament that would
grant amnesty for a broad range of political offenses from Sept.
15, 2005 to May 10, 2011.

Abhisit and Suthep won’t be detained, DSI director-general
Tharit Pengdit said today at a media briefing.

“We don’t take political sides and we don’t play
politics,” Tharit said. “We just do our job.”

The DSI and police have found strong evidence that soldiers
were implicated in at least 36 of 92 deaths, New York-based
Human Rights Watch said in September. While government forces
were responsible for most of the deaths and injuries, heavily
armed elements among the protesters also held some culpability,
the group said in calling for all those responsible to face
prosecution.

Tharit said 62 cases involving 295 people who were among
the protesters in 2010 are being dealt with by the courts. Cases
related to 34 deaths that have been attributed to government
forces are just beginning, he said.